Crediton Killings

by Michael Jecks

  Henry butted in. “We wouldn’t just kill a man for another’s passion.”

  “No, I daresay you wouldn’t,” said Baldwin pensively. “Not when you could see a way to winning all Sir Hector’s money without risking a rope.”

  “We never risked the rope,” Henry declared with passion. “Look, we went out with Adam, and we talked, but he refused to consider it at first. We rode to the old inn toward Sandford, and spent most of the night there, chatting about things, and we raised the idea of taking Sir Hector’s plate, but Adam wouldn’t hear of it. He left us, to return home early in the morning, but changed his mind, and came to meet us, and then we agreed what—”

  “He changed his mind?” Baldwin interrupted.

  “Yes, sir. He left the inn before us to make his way into town. By the time we were up at the cross on the Barn-staple road, he came haring back. He said he’d been thinking, and that he’d be mad not to accept. It was rare enough that a chance to get hold of so much money came along, and he couldn’t throw over the opportunity.”

  “I see. Continue.”

  “It was easy,” said John. “Sir Hector was out first thing, and came back in the afternoon, leaving again later on. Our only fear was Wat, because he might have enjoyed seeing us flogged, but Sir Hector had told him to collect the new dress for him. We knew we had plenty of time without interruptions—all we had to do was make sure we were out before Wat came in to fetch the salt for Hector’s meal—so we went to the captain’s rooms, pretending to want to see him. We knew he wasn’t there, but it gave us time to open the shutters to the yard. Then we left; and I kept a lookout while Henry climbed in through the window. He closed the shutters, and I walked out to the front. He started passing things to me there.”

  Henry spoke up sulkily. “John was pretending to be helping Adam. The butcher had sent his apprentice inside to see to the meats there. I passed the things out to John, and he shoved them all into a sack in the back of Adam’s wagon. Adam kept a lookout on the main street and up the hill beside, and John could see up the other way.”

  “Why go through the charade of entering to open the shutter, leaving again, and climbing in from the yard? You were inside already, so what was the point?” Simon asked.

  Henry threw him an astonished glance. “We went in to see him—we were pretending we thought he was there. How long would it have been before one of the others came in to find out what we were doing if we’d stayed there longer? No, we went in to unlock the shutters, and then we knew we could get in through the yard and spend as long inside as we liked.”

  “Weren’t the men in the hall suspicious?” Baldwin asked.

  “Well, we don’t speak to them too much. No, they said nothing. Someone sniggered when we came out, sort of thought it was funny we’d been searching for the captain. Later, when the silver was all out, we did the same again. John came round to the back and tapped on the frame when it was all quiet, and I got out. Then we went back pretending to see if Sir Hector had returned yet, and locked the shutters again.”

  “Didn’t you fear someone walking along the street and seeing you during this exercise?”

  John Smithson smiled slyly. “We’d thought about that. Adam had gutted some calves that morning and left their innards like ropes all over the pavement. Nobody came close, not with the smell of that lot festering in the sun for five hours—even the horses went on the other side of the street.”

  “So you cleared out all the plate?”

  “Yes, and then Adam took the wagon round to his shed and stored the silver in his hayloft. At the same time Henry climbed out and we went back inside to shut the window again.”

  “The girl,” Simon muttered. “What about the girl?”

  John looked at Henry, who was pale now, with a light sheen of sweat over his features. “I swear,” he said, and his voice was a croak, “I never killed her.”

  “But you knocked her out? And stuffed her into the chest?” Simon said, rising and standing beside Baldwin. “Why?”

  “When I climbed inside, through the window, it was empty. Later, I heard her approaching the room. She was calling out, happy. I just had time to nip behind the door, and when she came in I clouted her with my cudgel. She went down like a squirrel shot by a slingshot from a tree. John was at the window by then; I don’t know whether she saw him before she fell. I just trussed her up and dumped her inside the nearest chest. That’s all, and I’ll take my oath on the Bible for it.”

  “You may have to,” Baldwin said quietly. “And that in front of a Bishop.”

  Henry squared his shoulders. “It’s the truth.”

  Glancing at John, Simon saw him purse his lips. “What about you, John?”

  “Me?”

  “Somebody returned to the body and stabbed Sarra twice. When the lid lifted, she must have thought it was someone coming to free her but, instead, she saw that person thrust down with a knife. She couldn’t even scream, with her mouth gagged. Was it you?”

  “I said: I was outside.”

  “Yes, but Henry has just pointed out that you were at the window when she came in; she might have seen you.”

  “I don’t think so. I—”

  “Were you prepared to take the risk? If she had seen you, she could tell her master what you had done, couldn’t she? You couldn’t afford to leave her alive. She was a witness to your theft.”

  John stared at Henry. “Was I there on my own for any moment?” he demanded.

  “No.” The other’s voice allowed no doubt. “Neither of us were. We were together all the time we were in there.”

  “How so? What about when you, Henry, were inside, and John was out? When you had finished passing the plate out and went to the back of the inn, it would have been easy for John to slip inside and murder the girl, wouldn’t it?”

  “He couldn’t have, sir,” Henry stated. “I thought he had at first, but he couldn’t. When I left that room, I barred the shutters. The only way in was through the window of the back room or the door. No one could have got in from the front.”

  Baldwin stirred. “You realize the difficulty,” he remarked. “You confess to striking the girl, and to putting her into the chest, and then expect us to believe you when you say you had nothing to do with her death. Nobody else knew she was there.”

  “One man did,” Henry muttered, and Baldwin groaned as he realized.

  “Of course!”

  “He was there when I told John about the girl, and he was here in the town after we’d left. I don’t know why you reckon the other girls got killed, but I’d be willing to bet it was him as killed them all.”

  Simon met Baldwin’s gaze with a perplexed frown. “The butcher—Adam?”

  “He was the only one,” Baldwin said slowly. He wondered why he had not seriously considered the man before.

  “But why should he kill them all, though?”

  “Because he knew that each of these women had a link to Hector. Every one of them was associated with him in some way—the serving-girl Sarra, Judith because she had been a serving-girl years before, and Mary because she had been his lover. Perhaps he killed her because of jealousy, for no other reason. She had been dead some days. I think he murdered her as soon as he could after finding out about her infidelity. He heard about Sarra from Henry, so he stabbed her—”

  “Sir, he couldn’t have,” Henry said.

  “Why not?”

  “Because he wouldn’t have been able to get into the solar. We could do it only because we were known. A stranger like him would have been stopped at the hall.”

  “Sarra got in,” Simon said. “And obviously didn’t leave. The guards didn’t stop her, or look for her when she didn’t come out.”

  “That’s different! They all knew she had been sleeping with Sir Hector. They would have assumed she was waiting for him inside. Adam would never have got in.”

  “I think you miss a point here,” Baldwin said languidly, sipping from a goblet of watered wine. “You departe
d by the window, then went back inside to lock it, to make it look as if no one could have got in that way, yes? You had told Adam about the girl already. Right, then. I think he saw a wonderful opportunity. You told him, and went to go inside: through the hall to the solar. Meanwhile, he clambered in through the window to the yard, threw open the lid, stabbed her, dropped the lid, and was out again, before you had gone through the hall.”

  “He could have, Henry,” Smithson said in awestruck tones.

  “It meets the facts as we know them,” Baldwin asserted. “Except there is still one thing. The man whom you intended to be captured…What happened to Cole?”

  All at once Smithson’s eyes shifted nervously, while Henry sighed. When he spoke, it was with a kind of sullen defeat, as if he accepted at last that he was convicted and might as well confess all in the hope of leniency.

  “It was me. He’d been asking about us all day, trying to make out we’d killed his brother. We hadn’t, for we were nowhere near him on the day he died. We were on the flanks, while he was with Sir Hector in the center of the troop. But Cole was wary of us, and it seemed to me to be a good thing if we could get rid of him. I waited till he was out alone in the yard, and then kicked over some harness in the stable. He came up quick enough, and as soon as he was inside, I threw some horseshoes over to the other side of the door. When he turned to the noise, I clobbered him. I dragged him over to the back, and then had the idea of putting the blame on him. Nobody in the company would miss him, for he was new to us, so people could be suspicious of him. I tied him, and left him at the back of the stable. Adam brought his cart round, and we hid Cole between two calves’ carcasses, took him out to the south, and left him tied to a tree. Later, me and John walked there. John had fetched a couple of items from our hoard to leave on him, and then we waited. He didn’t wake while we were there.”

  Baldwin rested his chin on his fist as he looked from one to the other. “I see. Your openness does you some credit, I suppose. At least after this, we now know that Cole can be freed.”

  “Yes, and Adam Butcher should be taken at once,” Simon agreed.

  “Be careful,” Henry said. “He always was a hard man but now, since he’s learned of what his wife got up to, I think he’s more than a little bit mad.”

  “Come, Simon,” Baldwin said, getting up. “Let us visit the butcher and see what he has to say for himself.”

  Hugh and Edgar in tow, they made their way to the door, while Stapledon’s men remained with the two prisoners. Baldwin was about to go out through the front when he heard the scream.

  23

  Margaret had not felt so happy for weeks. Simon appeared to be getting over the shock of poor Peterkin’s death, and the return to Crediton after so many months up in the bleak countryside of the moors seemed to have done him good. She preferred not to consider how much of his returned color was due to the excitement of having another murder, or series of deaths, to investigate. It was more comforting to ignore that side of his nature, even though she was fully aware how much he enjoyed being involved in such enquiries. He was almost another man when there was a serious affair to be tried and justice to be sought.

  There was no doubt in her mind: he was improved. It was there in the way he smiled at her again—he had stopped doing that after Peterkin’s death. In some way she knew that a part of this was due to the boy.

  Rollo and Edith were playing together, their heads so close that they looked like a single creature. Every so often the boy threw a glance over his shoulder to make sure that Roger had not left him. Sitting on a low log which had been cut from an oak and was waiting to be separated into pieces for the fire, they looked like two small, and grubby, angels. The sun shone through their hair, making it flame into reddish halos with iridescent fringes; all they lacked was wings.

  The poor boy, she thought, had little chance in life. Orphans like him were all too often without hope, relying on the charity of the parish for survival. Even the most basic requirements for life were often refused to a lad with no family. Others reasoned, with cause, that the cost of an extra mouth represented in food was not worth the possible reward later. Those who could afford to look after such a waif preferred to give their money to institutions for the general good rather than dissipating their efforts in looking after a single person who was likely, in any case, to die. What was the point of seeing to the worldly needs of a single child, when the same money could go to a church or abbey where the monks would be able to say prayers which would protect the souls of hundreds or thousands?

  She mulled over this dilemma as she watched them constructing daisy chains, Edith giggling to herself while the boy seriously threaded one stalk through the next. Children should be protected and looked after, like any precious goods, but their value was regularly ignored. When a villein’s family suffered a lack of food, it was all too often the children who must do without, for their father needed the sustenance to be able to work his land and produce food for the future. Sometimes mothers would starve themselves in an effort to keep their children alive, but this was frowned upon. If the children could not survive, such was God’s will, whereas the mother should keep herself fit to look after the others and in order to be able to produce more. There was no sense in her killing herself to look after those who were unproductive.

  Margaret knew it was sensible, but she did not like it. It would be impossible for her to watch her Edith die for want of food, for the young life possessed by her daughter was more precious to her than her own. The view that only adult life mattered because it was productive was incomprehensible to her.

  Yet she did not want to have this extra little life attached to hers. It was difficult enough knowing that she had failed her husband by not producing the heir he needed so desperately to take the family forward, without accepting defeat by inviting a cuckoo into her nest. She knew of many families who were apparently plagued, like them, with an incapacity to breed their own boys. They were able to produce strong herds of cattle and flocks of sheep, their dogs and cats multiplied easily, and yet all too often there was this fundamental weakness: no sons to carry on the family name.

  Rollo was a likable boy, and Edith thought he was the perfect playmate, but Margaret could not take him into her family. She would always be expecting him to meet her own exacting standards, and if he failed, she might lose her temper and remind him he was motherless. In any event, if she were later, as she hoped and prayed, to be able to conceive and bear a son for Simon, he must feel deserted again. The cuckoo would be supplanted.

  “May I join you?”

  “Of course,” she smiled, and patted the bench beside her. Stapledon dropped gratefully on to the log, and studied the children with interest.

  “They appear to get on very well together,” he mused.

  “Yes. It is nice for Edith to have a child of her own age to play with. I think she was bored before.”

  “How is he?”

  “He obviously isn’t over it, I would hardly expect him to be, but he seems calm enough so long as someone is with him. It’s when he’s alone that the fear comes to him again.”

  “Yes.” Stapledon gave a grimace. “One shudders to think of what he saw. It would be enough to break the mind of many.”

  “He’s young; youth often helps. There is a resilience in children which we adults often lack,” she said indulgently.

  “Perhaps. But I cannot help but wonder what may become of him.”

  In the pit of her stomach she felt the trembling nervousness. She dared not look at him, fearing that her eyes would give away her innermost thoughts. “Er…No, neither can I,” she said.

  “It would be best for him to be looked after in a family, I suppose.”

  “Yes—ideally, anyway.”

  “But the right sort of family…It is hard to find parents who would be suitable.”

  “Very hard.”

  “Not, of course, that there aren’t many very deserving people in this town. Very deserving,
indeed…But so much more could be made of him.”

  “Er…”

  “And then there’s the financial aspect. Few in Crediton could afford an extra mouth, one would imagine.”

  Margaret nodded glumly, steeling herself to reject the suggestion.

  “So tell me, Margaret. What do you think of this for an idea?” Stapledon turned to face her, his brow wrinkled in thought.

  And then the cudgel struck him and he crumpled at her feet.

  Baldwin’s hand was already tugging his sword from its scabbard even as the shriek shivered and died on the late afternoon air. His eyes went to Simon. The bailiff shoved him aside as he began to run for the garden. “That was Margaret!”

  He and Hugh rushed out into the garden. Simon felt his heart pounding as his sword came free of its sheath with a slithering of steel. His wife needed him, and he would not fail her. Not this second time. For weeks he had avoided her when she needed him; he had tried to escape his own sadness by excluding her and thus preventing her from reminding him of his loss. The shame of his behavior, freezing out the woman who depended on him alone for her life, when all she wanted was to give him her support and offer her comfort to him, burned in his veins like molten lead.

  There was another sharp cry of fear, then a keening wail of absolute, chilling terror, and Simon felt his scalp contract in reaction. He gripped the hilt of his weapon and led the way down the short staircase to the herb garden, past the trellis up which the roses climbed, and through to the lawn overlooking the meadow.

  Here they found the children. Stapledon lay sprawled beside the oaken log, and Baldwin ran to his side. He looked up at Simon, relief plain on his face. The Bishop was alive.

  Simon went to Edith. She stood, shocked, staring at her playmate, and was pleased to be able to plunge her face in her father’s tunic to hide from the piteous child.

  Rollo stood, eyes wide, mouth gaping, as scream after scream issued from his frail little body. He was incapable of speech, unconscious of the others all round. His whole being was one long, solitary screech of loss and despair. First the man had killed his mother, and now the kind lady who had looked after him had been taken away as well. Roger stood nearby, wringing his hands, unsure how to calm the child.